Society has decided that certain jobs should come with certain minimum standards attached to them, that's true of caterers, hotels, surgeons, airline pilots... and taxi drivers.
"Society has decided" is not a good substitute for an actual reason for a policy. I'm not arguing against democracy here. I also think you are confusing minimum pay with minimum qualifications. A medallion is not a qualification, it is an arbitrary limit (yes there are other reasons for the limit like congestion, but the article discuses pay)
Not being able to get a "high paying job" is not really the problem.
The problem is that the "market" has so far failed to distribute enough wealth to satisfy everyone's needs and for most of those that you can argue that market has been able to satisfy, they are essentially slaves to that market, with little to no mobility.
Presumably Uber's customers have decided that the New York taxis do not meet their minimum standards -- else they would just take a taxi. And who better to make this decision than the people involved?
"Society" rarely makes such decisions. Governments do. The narrative that government is controlled by society as a whole for its overall benefit is a fascinating fiction.